Biljana Plavšić

Biljana Plavšić, (born July 7, 1930, Tuzla, Yugoslavia [now in Bosnia-Herzegovina]), Bosnian Serb politician, known as “the Iron Lady,” who served as president of the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) from 1996 to 1998. Her conduct during and after the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s led to her trial and imprisonment for war crimes.

Plavšić was born to an academic family and spent much of her early life in Sarajevo, where her father was the director of natural sciences at one of the city’s museums. She studied botany, eventually specializing in plant viruses and earning a Ph.D. from the University of Zagreb. She traveled to New York City as a Fulbright scholar in the 1970s before returning to Sarajevo to join the faculty of the University of Sarajevo.

Frustrated at setbacks in her academic career, Plavšić entered politics, joining the fledgling Serb Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka; SDS) in 1990. She rose quickly through its ranks and from late 1990 until the outbreak of war in 1992 served as a member of Bosnia’s collective presidency. When Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia in April 1992—a move that was opposed by the SDS—Plavšić joined other party members in proclaiming the Serbian Republic of Bosnia, with its capital at Pale. She served as vice president under president and SDS leader Radovan Karadić, quickly distinguishing herself with bellicose pronouncements directed at the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat populations.

The U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords brought an end to the fighting in December 1995 and recognition of the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) with minority power in the country’s joint presidency. Because Karadić was under indictment for war crimes, a clause in the Dayton Accords prohibited him from standing for election, and Plavšić was elected to the new government in his stead. She broke with the SDS in 1997 after publicly accusing Karadić of having amassed a fortune through an illegal smuggling ring, and she softened her stance on the possible return of Bosniak refugees to the Serb republic. She was soundly defeated by a Serb ultranationalist in her reelection bid in 1998.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Plavšić in January 2001, charging that her actions in 1992, as a member of collective presidencies of both Bosnia and the breakaway Serbian Republic of Bosnia, constituted crimes against humanity and that Plavšić actively supported the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in Serb-held lands. She surrendered to authorities later that month and pled not guilty to the charges laid against her. After a series of negotiations, Plavšić ultimately pled guilty to the lesser charge of persecution based on political, racial, or religious grounds, and in February 2003 she was sentenced to 11 years in prison. In October 2009 she was granted early release for good behaviour.